For controlling unexpected floods, sand bags are commonly filled using shovels or hand implements so that they can be piled in massed piles or along makeshift revetments for flood control. Due to the hard labor required and the short time available in emergency conditions, it would be desirable to have a more convenient way to fill as many sandbags at a time as possible. Some prior systems have employed a sand hopper on the tailgate of the loader of a dump truck to fill sandbags, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,602,402 to Garden, or U.S. Pat. No. 4,585,041 to Cavanaugh. However, the ability to back a dump truck close to the site of flooding may be limited by road accessibility and/or by the limited mobility of a dump truck. Other proposals call for using a filling stand or conveyor with an overhead hopper for filling bags down one or more chutes or bag holders, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,522 to Waite, U.S. Pat. No. 5,893,260 to McKenna, or U.S. Pat. No. 6,006,801 to Litwak. However, this approach has problems of limited accessibility for towing or the time required for assembling a filling stand or conveyor equipment near a flood site.
Other proposals have provided for fitting a hydraulically-operated loader bucket of earthmover or loader-type equipment with an augur or filler gate, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,022 to Carlsson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,827,038 to Barden, U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,949 to Brown, U.S. Pat. No. 7,004,713 to Sweningson, U.S. Pat. No. 7,510,365 to Babiarz, U.S. Published Patent Application 2004/0253088 to Sweningson, U.S. Published Patent Application 2004/0258508 to Jewell, or U.S. Published Patent Application 2007/0243053 to Babiarz. While loader-type equipment has the desired mobility for maneuvering near a flood site for sandbag filling and piling, the prior proposals are limited in the number of bags that can be filled at a time from a loader bucket. It would be desirable to provide a way to readily fill as many sandbags at a time as possible while employing the mobility of loader-type equipment.